COACH Z: Aw, if I had a nickel for every time I've been groaned off stage.

Fun Facts

Trivia

This cartoon marked the start of a hiatus lasting until April Fool's Day 2014, the longest ever for the site.

Explanations

Loading screen

No Halloween toon was released in October 2010. To compensate, the characters are dressed up for Decemberween instead, and Strong Bad says they "have their 'weens' crossed" (the loading screen even features a jack-o-lantern wearing a Santaman hat).

Remarks

This toon has no back button.

This is the first Halloween toon to not include Homsar since his creation.

The scene inside Pom Pom's snowglobe costume is slightly different from the real scene:

The Cheat is in between Strong Bad and Marzipan instead of Strong Bad and Coach Z.

Everyone else is in the same order, but they're spread out horizontally and are not as deep vertically.

The stiletto heel Strong Bad is standing in is reversed.

The miniature Pom Pom is empty instead of containing yet another scene of characters.

The miniature Homestar inside Pom Pom's costume blinks its eyes. Marzipan, who normally blinks, does not blink either in the real scene or the miniature.

Strong Mad's costume is labeled "the Abominable Snowman", a generic name for the mythical Yeti, though it seems to refer specifically to the creature from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special, which was actually called the Abominable Snow Monster.

When Bubs puts away the machine gun, his arm and hand go completely off-screen, revealing another hand at his side at the same time.

This is the first toon since the introduction of the FeedBurner Page not to get an entry on that page.

Fixed Goofs

When this toon was originally released, the King of Town's costume was misspelled "Heat Meiser" instead of the correct "Heat Miser". The error was corrected later that day.

The label over The Cheat originally omitted the word "as".

When clicking on the Strong Mad Easter egg, Bubs's teeth would lower and The Cheat's right arm would raise slightly. After Homestar finished talking, both characters returned to their default.

Inside References

Bubs brandishes a machine gun, which is meant to keep The Cheat from stealing out of the bargain bin.

Homestar previously confused weens in the ornament scene of Decemberween Short Shorts when he complimented Strong Bad ornament's costume, prompting Strong Bad to say "Uh, you got the wrong 'ween, Homestar. This is Decemberween. Not the Hallow- one."

Homestar once again misinterprets the King of Town's costume as being Don King. He previously did this in Jibblies 2 when he mistook the King's costume of Rev. Al Sharpton as "melted Don King".

Real-World References

Rankin/Bass is the production company that produced the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Christmas special, which premiered in 1964 on NBC and airs annually on CBS as of 2014. Strong Mad emulates Rankin/Bass' erratic animation style employed in its stop-motion cartoons, especially in holiday specials like Rudolph and The Year Without a Santa Claus, the program that inspired the King of Town's costume.

Strong Mad is dressed as the Abominable Snow Monster, one of the major antagonists of the program.

St. Elsewhere was a TV series that was set in the fictional Saint Elegius Hospital in Boston and aired from 1982 until 1988 on NBC. Homestar's mentioning of the series finale notes the episode's ending, where it was implied that the entire series was just the imagination of Tommy Westphall, a boy with autism played by Chad Allen who spent much of his time staring at a snowglobe with a small replica of Saint Elegius inside it. The episode's ending also gave rise to a theory regarding what else might have existed solely in Tommy's mind.

Ed Begley, Jr. is an actor who was a member of the St. Elsewhere cast for its entire run. Begley played the role of Dr. Victor Ehrlich.

The exchange between Strong Bad and Strong Sad is taken directly from the exchange between Ralphie Parker's parents when they saw him wearing the bunny suit. Ralphie's father said that his son looked like a "deranged Easter bunny" and a "pink nightmare", while his mother disagreed.

Strong Bad is dressed as the "major award" Ralphie's father won, which was a lamp that was designed to look like a woman's leg.

The King of Town mentions the Bumpuses' dogs, a pack of hunting hounds that belonged to the Parker family's "hillbilly neighbors" and who constantly harassed Ralphie's father. The dogs did not actually do anything to the leg lamp; they only ate the family's Christmas turkey while destroying their kitchen. The lamp had been destroyed earlier in the film by Mrs. Parker, who knocked it over while watering a plant and may or may not have done so on purpose.

Homestar confuses Strong Sad's costume as Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko, a figment of the title character's imagination who tells him the world is going to end.

Homestar comments on his own costume to the tune of "Do You Realize??" by The Flaming Lips. The band's lead singer Wayne Coyne wrote the 2008 film Christmas on Mars, which provided the inspiration for Homestar's costume but did not feature the song (which was released in 2002).

As noted above, the Heat Miser is a character from Rankin/Bass' The Year Without a Santa Claus, which premiered on ABC in 1974. The King of Town also quotes the character's song from the movie when describing his costume.

Don King is a boxing promoter who Homestar, as noted above, mentioned in Jibblies 2. Homestar's mention this time makes reference to King's hair, which he wears sticking straight up.

Coach Z's lyric "Not bad as in bad but bad as in real bad" is a reference to the Run-DMC song "Peter Piper", which has the lyric "Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good."